


Sunlight

by QueenOfCarrotFlowers



Series: Carrot's Romance Fics [14]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Diners, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bit of Fluff, Canonical Character Death, F/M, HEA, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inspired by a Hozier Song, bit of angst, car crash mention, mentions of world mythology, rey and ben are nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-20 10:36:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20226451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers
Summary: There's a new waitress at Ben's favorite all-night diner.





	Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [27vampyresinhermind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/27vampyresinhermind/gifts).

> The prompt was "anything Hozier" so here's a little thing inspired by Hozier's song "Sunlight". A bit angsty, hope you enjoy!
> 
> Update: I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming response to this story. I'm really thrilled that people seem to like it and I love every comment. This is officially my second-most-kudo'd reylo fic (my first is a multichapter ABO - consider that a hint, if you're trying to figure out who I am) and I'm glad because it's one of my best (although perhaps not my most interesting). Thanks to all of you for reading and thanks again to 27vampyresinhermind for providing such an open-ended but specific prompt that made this story possible.

The sun had just gone down, which meant it was time for Ben Solo to have breakfast. 

He always had the same meal - three eggs, scrambled, with a side of bacon, sourdough toast with extra butter, cut fruit, and lots of black coffee. There were two diners he rotated between during the week, to keep things interesting, and tonight it was The Sunlight Diner, just around the corner from his apartment. He liked the Sunlight, the coffee was pretty good and he’d been going there for long enough that the waitress knew his order, he didn’t even have to speak to her; probably hadn’t spoken a word to her in months. He also had a kind of ironic appreciation for the name of the place - Sunlight, indeed. It made him grimace, if not exactly smile.

Ben let himself in the door accompanied by the tinkle of the bell and didn’t even look around before heading to his usual booth. He pulled his sketchbook out of his bag, and returned to his latest drawing, half-waiting for his cup of coffee to be set by his elbow, just as it had been every visit for the past year and a half.

That’s not what happened.

“Good evening, sir,” chirped a voice, accompanied by a heavy plastic menu slapped down in front of him. “May I get you something to drink while you decide what you want to order?”

Ben was so shocked at being spoken to that it took him a moment to figure out how to respond. While he considered it, he took a look at the person doing the talking. She was most definitely not his usual waitress, a middle-aged woman who wore a ponytail and a perpetually bored expression. This woman was younger, early 20s maybe, with long hair pulled back in three little buns and a scattering of freckles across her nose, which was pink from too much sun. Her name tag said REY.

Rey was cute, not that he cared. He just wanted his breakfast, and to be left alone. He considered telling her this, but then she tilted her head and scrunched her nose, and he decided that maybe he wouldn’t mind speaking to her after all.

“Hey,” he said. “Where’s, uh, the other waitress?”

“Oh, you mean Bev? Her husband got moved to the night shift, so she needed to take the day shift, so now I’m working the first night shift.” Her voice was attractive, lilting, with a touch of an accent. From England, he thought, although probably not for a long time. She gave him a friendly smile, and he frowned.

“Okay. I come here a lot, and I always order the same thing. Black coffee, three scrambled eggs, bacon, sourdough toast with extra butter, and cut fruit. Think you can handle that?”

She hadn’t even written the order down. “I can handle that,” she said, giving him a weird look and taking the menu back with her to the kitchen.

She returned a few minutes later with a mug, which she set at his elbow and filled from a carafe. 

“You like Greek myths?” She asked and he lifted his eyes from his sketchbook to gaze up at her. Her head was at a tilt again, the ghost of a smile around her eyes. She gestured her chin at the drawing.

“Icarus,” she said, “Right? Flew too close to the sun, wax holding his wings together melted, he fell to his death. Very sad.”

“I know who Icarus is,” Ben snapped, hunching over his sketchbook and pulling it closer, looking down at the drawing, long grey lines meeting with shorter, darker, more carefully drawn ones. “It’s not Icarus.”

She waited for a moment - the waitress, Rey was her name - Ben could almost feel her standing there, next to his booth, but after a few seconds she walked back to the kitchen.

He had just started shading the wings when she returned with his food. She named each dish as she set it down. “Eggs and bacon… toast… fruit… Need more coffee?” 

Without a word and without taking his eyes off the drawing Ben pushed the half-empty cup closer to her, followed closely by the sound of pouring and the rich aroma of hot coffee. 

“It’s Lucifer, isn’t it,” Rey said, and something about the tone of her voice made him look up at her. Her gaze was intense, but she wasn’t looking at the drawing - she was looking directly at him.

“Uh, yeah. Lucifer. The shining one. Bright angel cast into Hell.”

Rey gave him a grin. “I know who Lucifer is. Enjoy your breakfast.”

He watched her walk back into the kitchen and took his first bite of bacon; slightly burned at the edge, like him, and just the way he liked it.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

Ben was used to people not speaking to him and he was sure he’d been annoyed at the waitress’s insistence on attempting conversation. But she had noticed his drawing, had identified it as Icarus and then as Lucifer. He loved both stories and sympathized with both characters; with their desire to buck authority, do something new and different, something that nobody else had done, and with the stinging pain of their failure and disappointment. And he’d thought about her later; when he was working from the desk in his apartment, communicating with his coworkers half a world away. He kept the curtains open until the sun peeked over the horizon, then he closed them tight, the corona around the dark fabric the only indication that the sun existed at all. After he signed off he took a beer from the fridge, settled himself on the sofa, and browsed Netflix while thinking about Rey.

When Ben returned to the Sunshine Diner two evenings later, Rey did not speak to him. A minute after he slid into his booth she brought him a cup of coffee and set it silently at his elbow, and 5 minutes after that she brought him his meal: eggs and bacon, toast with extra butter, cut fruit. She mumbled the names of the items as she set them in front of him, as she had done that the first day, but otherwise she did not speak. Soon after she returned with more coffee. 

He wanted to speak with her, but it was clear that if it was going to happen, it would be on his initiative. So as she poured his second cup of coffee, he gathered his wits.

“Uh, I wanted to ask you something,” he said, feeling brave but also stupid. But she smiled at him, and that made him feel better, just a bit.

“Go ahead,” she replied, gesturing around the room, empty aside from one older man sitting at the counter, watching Fox News on the TV. “I’m not busy.”

“How do you know about Icarus, and Lucifer?”

Her face changed, very suddenly, from friendly to angry; the look she gave him could have curdled milk. “Am I not supposed to know about Icarus and Lucifer?” she asked, haughtily, her eyebrows raised.

“No, no! That's not… you know what, never mind." Her anger made him angry, too, and he wanted to take up that emotion and throw it back at her. Instead he held it in, curled up, and turned his attention back to his sketch pad.

Rey didn't move. He could feel her, shifting from foot to foot.

"I had some college," she said quietly, "got a little scholarship, but it wasn't enough and I had to drop out. Anyway, I took an introduction to world mythology. Learned a bit. Enough to make small talk."

Ben gazed up at her, looking tired in her uniform, wisps of hair falling out of her bun. 

"I majored in classics," he said. "wrote my senior thesis on the medieval reception of Aristotle but when I was a kid I was really into the mythology."

"What's your favorite story?" She asked, face brightening.

He didn't have to think. "Orpheus and Eurydice, definitely."

"Oh, but that's sad! Why that one?"

"That's the way things work. Having something you love, only to fuck up and lose it? I sympathize. What's yours?"

"Probably Persephone and Hades," she answered with a grin. "She had to spend half her existence in darkness, but Hades was good to her. I think it was probably worth it."

The bell over the door tinkled, announcing a new customer and interrupting their conversation, and Rey walked away without another word.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

The weekend felt like it went on for too long. Ben spent it the same way he always did - sleeping through the day, avoiding the sun, walking around the neighborhood in the middle of the night, watching Netflix. That weekend he also spent thinking about Rey, which was new and good but was also painful. He wondered what she was doing. He wondered if she was thinking about him, too. During his walk on Saturday he went so far as to make a path by the Sunlight Diner, and he stood across the street and peered into the broad plate-glass windows, like a creep, but he didn’t see her so he didn’t go in. 

On Monday evening he was back, and so was Rey. It was like clockwork; he settled at the booth and pulled out his sketchbook, she brought him his coffee and complimented his drawing.

“Orpheus!” Rey announced, smiling down at him as she poured the hot, bitter brew into his mug. 

She was right, of course. It was Orpheus, looking back as Eurydice faded into the Underworld.

“I always felt a bit sorry for Orpheus,” she continued, leaning her hip against the table and flicking her eyes from the drawing to his face and back again.

“Not for Eurydice?”

She pressed her lips together and scrunched up her face. “I rather wondered if she didn’t want to stay. Have you read the Middle English version of the story?”

“No. I’ve heard of it, though. Eurydice gets stolen by the king of the Fae?”

“She’s called Heurodis in that story. And yes!” She slipped into the bench across from him and leaned forward, holding the carafe high to keep it from touching the linoleum tabletop. “She’s not bitten by a snake, she’s just taken away, even though Orpheus - Sir Orfeo, that is - had knights surrounding her to keep her safe. She says things over the course of the story that made me think that she wanted to go with the Fairy King, and wanted to stay with him. After I read that I didn’t feel so bad for her anymore.” Her gaze lost its intensity and she picked at the edge of the table with her fingernail. “I still feel kind of bad for her husband.”

Ben glanced down at the drawing, reevaluated, and adjusted the expression on Eurydice’s dim face to have more of a smile. 

“Did you read that story in an introduction to world mythology class? Seems a little advanced.”

She grinned at that, her nose scrunched up in that way he found so adorable, and laughed. It sounded like a seal’s bark, and he thought that was adorable too. “Nah, one of the profs was retiring and had all his books set out, and one of them was JRR Tolkein so I took it, thinking it would be one of his magic books I’d heard about, but it was just some translations. Anyway,” She pulled herself out from the booth, “I’d better put your order in or you’ll never get to eat. I’ll be back in a few, okay?”

Ben waved at her retreating back, and made another small modification to the lines around Eurydice’s mouth. She looked a bit like Rey, he thought, and added dimples to her cheeks.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

By trial and error, Ben figured out Rey’s work schedule - he didn’t have the guts to just ask her - and he started coming to the Sunshine Diner every night she worked. Rey didn’t comment on it but she certainly didn’t seem to mind. She brought him her copy of Tolkein’s translation of Sir Orfeo; he brought her a color pencil drawing of her, mountains over her shoulder, sun high in the sky, her eyes narrowed in its glare. She looked like she was laughing.

She laughed when he gave it to her. Her nose was pink again - her face was always pink on Monday, it sounded like she often spent her weekends outdoors. She would tell him about it sometimes - it was always “we” and “us”: “We got up early on Saturday and drove up to Highland Circle, just to watch the sunrise,” or “we took the long hike up to Dragon’s Tooth, it took all afternoon,” or “we wanted to go tubing on the New River but it rained so we went to Pandapas Pond instead, and tried to catch frogs but they were too fast for us.” She never explained who the other members of “we” were, so he assumed a boyfriend, or maybe a girlfriend, or even both. He thought about this sometimes, after work, after Netflix or drawing, lying in his comfortable bed with the light-blocking curtains over the window, thought about Rey naked, having sex with some faceless person or people. He’d imagine how she might look having an orgasm, how her lips would move, and her body. It felt a bit creepy because he thought she was his friend - his real friend, his only friend - but it also didn’t mean anything so he tried not to feel _too_ bad. Nothing was ever going to happen about it, anyway.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

“Why don’t you like the sun?”

She asked the question on Thursday, after pouring his first cup of coffee. He was just starting a new drawing - it was going to be Persephone and Hades, eating seeds out of a pomegranate together. He was pretty sure Persephone was going to look like Rey but he didn’t think he had the nerves to draw Hades to look like himself. He was thinking about it, though.

“Why do you say I don’t like the sun?”

She slid onto the opposite bench, holding the carafe a few inches above the linoleum - a familiar sight by now - and shoved it at him as though she were pointing.

“You never come in until after the sun goes down, and you never talk about going out in the daylight, even when I’m telling you about all the stuff I do. You’ve never expressed interest in coming with us.” With this declaration her face softens and saddens, just a bit. “And you’re the palest person I’ve ever seen who isn’t albino. I doubt you’ve been outside in years.” Her sad face morphs into a mischievous grin. “Also, I’m curious”

Ben almost grins back, but he’s certain what comes out is an ugly grimace. 

“I work nights. I sleep all day,” he says weakly, but she just rolls her eyes at him.

“Lame. Look, it’s Spring, almost Summer. Sunrise is what, six, seven am? And it doesn’t go down until seven-thirty. You don’t come here until eight. You are not sleeping fourteen hours. Judging from the bags under your eyes you aren’t even sleeping eight. Which means you’re sitting in your house, all alone, in the dark. Am I wrong?”

Ben shook his head. She was not wrong.

“It’s complicated,” he said. He could feel tears pricking at the edges of his eyes but he refused to let them fall, and he refused to look at her. He looked at Persephone instead, finger intent on plucking exactly the seed she wanted out of that ripe fruit. Rey leaned back and set her head against the high padding. 

“That’s okay,” she said softly. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

He watched her slide out of the booth and walk back behind the counter to grab his food, already waiting under the warming lights in the shelf between the kitchen and the dining room.

The thing was, he _did_ want to tell her. He wanted to tell her very much. But he couldn't bear the thought of how she’d look at him once she knew; he didn’t want to see pity in her eyes, or, worse, fear. So he kept his eyes on his sketchbook when she brought the food out, and he didn’t talk to her again when he left.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

The next day was Friday. It was a national holiday in the country where the company Ben worked for was based, so it was a day off for him. He hadn’t decided what he was going to do - probably sketching and Netflix, maybe a walk around the neighborhood - but since it was now his custom to take breakfast at the Sunlight Diner every weeknight he definitely wanted to do that. He considered not going, after the uncomfortable conversation with Rey the day before, but he wanted to see her, and he wanted her to know he wasn’t angry at her. A couple of years ago he might have done something different; closed himself off, avoided her completely, gone out into the dark woods and screamed and hit the tree trunks with heavy sticks until his muscles ached and he couldn’t speak. But he wouldn’t do that now, and he wanted to see Rey, so he went to the diner after sundown as usual.

She brought his coffee, and smiled at him, and he smiled at her and showed her the sketch.

“That looks a bit like me!” 

“Hm, I guess it does,” Ben replied, shifting the sketchbook back so it was upright to him. “How about that.”

“Quite a coincidence,” she murmured, sliding yet again into the facing booth. When Ben looked up she was gazing at him, unsmiling and serious. 

“Can I ask you another question?” 

Ben nodded. He decided then and there that he would answer whatever question she asked him. He would make up for denying her yesterday; he didn’t want to deny her again.

“What happened to your face?”

He gasped. The question made his stomach churn. He was aware that he had a large scar that cut across the right side of his face, from just above his eyebrow all the way down his cheek, his chin, and disappeared behind the collar of his shirt. It ended in the shape of a hook over his right pectoral muscle. Rey had never mentioned it, had never even seemed to notice it, so he had allowed himself to believe somehow that she didn’t see it. But of course she did; it was hard to miss. And she must have been wondering about it for a while, and he’d just decided that he would answer her question no matter what.

Ben didn’t want to lie to Rey. So instead, he told the truth. 

“I was in a car accident,” he answered, honestly. She tilted her head - the same way she had the night they’d met - and waited. She knew that he had more to say, and she was patient.

“I was driving,” he continued slowly, eyes focused somewhere over her shoulder. He wasn’t really looking at her, anyway; he was remembering that day. “It was early, and the sun was in my eyes. I was stopped at a red light, and I was holding up my hand so I could see the light change, you know?” He demonstrated, holding up his left hand and closing his left eye, and he could see Rey’s head nod in his peripheral vision. “Anyway the light changed to green so I pulled into the intersection, but there was a garbage truck and it didn’t stop.”

Ben could remember it all - the screech of brakes, the crunch of the heavy vehicle collapsing the passenger side of his dad’s old beater, the utter silence that followed. But more than anything Ben remembered the bright sun in his eyes. The sun never went away, it was in his eyes all the time from that moment on, and the only thing that made it stop was staying away from it completely.

Rey stared at him from across the table, lips parted, shocked. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m very glad you made it out okay.”

“I didn’t make it out okay,” he mumbled. “I broke my right arm and leg, and I got this thing on my face. And I lost a lot of blood. Also,” he had to stop, to pause. She was blurry, there across the table, but he felt something in his hand and he thought it was her hand, and that gave him the strength he needed to keep talking. “My dad was with me, in the car, and I was driving, and he died.”

Ben had to stop, and he didn’t want to let Rey’s hand go so he wiped his left hand against his face, scrubbed his eyes, but it didn’t help. They were still wet, and the sun was still in his eyes. Then there was something soft against his face; paper napkins. Rey had set down the hot carafe on the linoleum and pulled a handful of napkins out of the tabletop holder and was up on her knees, leaning across the table to wipe off his face. 

“I’m sorry, Ben,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I asked. That was rude of me.”

He grabbed her other hand, so they were both grasped across the table, and he held them tight. 

“No, it’s fine. I’m glad I told you. And now you know.”

“I do know. I’m glad to know.” 

The shrill bell from the kitchen announced that Ben’s order was up, and Rey gave his hands a squeeze before extracting herself to go get his breakfast.

Later, as he was packing up to leave. Rey stopped by his table. He’d only eaten half his food, and he’d spent the entire time worried that he’d overshared - even though she’d asked, and he had only answered her question. She seemed to anticipate his concern.

“Ben,” she said, placing her hand on top of his, “serving you breakfast is the high point of my day, and nothing you’ve told me today changes that. I can tell that you’re upset, but please keep coming in. Please.”

“I can’t believe this is the best thing you do all week,” he scoffed, gesturing at the table - his half-eaten toast, messy eggs pushed around the edge of the plate, “considering all the other things you do. The hike, last Tuesday? And tubing on the river?”

“Rained out,” she clarified.

“Even so, can’t believe I rank higher than that. You going out and having fun with your friends.”

“You think I’m lying to you?” Her cheeks reddened, and her eyes, oh, they were a blaze. Ben couldn’t look away. “I love doing those things, yes. I love being outside, in nature, and in the sun. But I do those things alone, Ben. Well, alone with my dog. I don’t have friends here, so I do the things I want to do by myself. And it’s good, I enjoy them. But here? In the diner? You’re here too. And I like that.” Her expression softened and she smiled shily. “I’d rather be here with you than anywhere else by myself. I don’t really like to be alone.”

Rey’s hand was still resting on his, and he turned his hand over and squeezed hers. “You’re not alone.”

“Neither are you.”

“Come home with me tonight.”

The words were out of Ben’s mouth before the idea had fully materialized in his head, and he didn’t have time to regret it because her face broke into the most glorious smile he’d ever seen. It brightened her, filled the room, blinded him but he didn’t care. She was sunshine but she was good, and he would just have to learn to deal with it.

“I get off at midnight,” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Do you want to stay? I’ll bring more coffee. Or water, whatever you’d like. Pie?”

He checked his phone; it was only 9:30pm, and he hadn’t planned to ask her to come home with him.

“I have some, uh, things to take care of. I’ll come back for you at eleven-thirty, is that okay? I live just around the corner.”

“Yes, that’s fine! That’s really good. Um,” she leaned closer to him, lowered her face to his ear. “I have a latex allergy. Just, you know, in case that’s important.”

The heat in Ben’s cheeks could have fried an egg, and Rey laughed when she saw it. “You have some color in your cheeks after all!”

“It is important,” he murmured, ignoring her comment about the color in his cheeks. But then her cheeks were pink, too, and he thought maybe that was fair.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

Ben returned to the Sunlight Diner at 11:30. The place was busy, people from the local bars starting to filter in already for their after-drinks meals. Ben sat at the counter and Rey slipped him a cup of coffee. "On the house," she whispered with a smile and a wink.

She got off promptly at midnight, following a pleasant exchange with the night manager and the waiter taking the next shift. They grinned at the two of them as they walked out the door, Ben holding it open for Rey. Even the cook peeked out of the kitchen, and he gave Ben a thumbs up when he made one last glance back.

The night was clear and almost warm, and they walked close together down the sidewalk. In the hours since breakfast Ben had tidied his apartment, changed the sheets on his bed and done the dishes, which were now laying clean and drying on the sideboard. He'd also stopped by the pharmacy down the street and purchased a box of extra-large sized non-latex condoms. He was very sure that's what Rey had meant when she said she had an allergy, but even so he'd spent minutes staring at the shelf. Should he buy three, or six or a dozen? Three felt like a one-night stand, but twelve felt like a relationship. He took six, but halfway to the registers he changed his mind, running back to the shelf to exchange the box of six for a dozen.

"We don't have to do anything," Ben said. Rey looked at him sharply but he bumbled on. "I mean I feel like I should take you out first, to dinner or something, or a movie, or." He stops because she’s stopped, paused in the middle of the sidewalk where the slightly drunk college students were forced to walk around them.

"Ben, what do you think we've been doing?"

He thought back over the past several weeks, to their conversations and books shared and jokes and secrets told.

"Oh," he said. “But you never talk about yourself.”

“You never ask,” she replied with a shrug, but she didn’t seem upset about it. She knew so much more about him than he knew about her; he was a jerk for not asking.

“Tell me where you’re from, then,” he said, “and why you have an English accent.”

She slipped her fingers between his and squeezed. “I was born in London, but my parents died when I was small and I was taken in by my mother’s aunt. We moved to New York when I was eight and after she died I went into the foster system. I graduated from high school, aged out, and moved down here for college. You know the rest, I guess.”

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Ben said, and he meant it.

“It’s okay. I’ve had a long time to get used to it.”

Ben didn’t know how to reply to that, so he asked another question instead. 

“What’s your dog’s name?”

“BeeBee. She’s a yellow lab. Funny thing, she’s a big dog who thinks she’s little.”

“Do you need to go home, take her for a walk or feed her or something?”

Rey squeezed his hand. “Ah, no. I texted my neighbor earlier to let her know I’m staying out, and she said she’d take care of her. Thanks for thinking of it, though. Anyway, to go back to what you said earlier: I like you very much, and I want to go home with you tonight. With everything that entails."

By then they were at the door to his building, and she followed him inside and then into his apartment. She kissed him before the door was closed, warm and sweet but nipping at his lips, and then he carried her into the bedroom and laid her on the bed. The look she gave him when she saw the large box on his bedside table convinced him he’d made the right decision.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

A while later - Ben wasn't sure of the time and he didn't feel like looking at his phone - Rey got up and stood at the window, balanced on one foot, her hands gripping the curtains. The light from outside set the shadows and planes of her face in stark relief, and he couldn't help but admire the curves of her naked body.

"What are you looking at?" He asked.

"The moon," she answered, deserting the window and crawling back into the bed. "What are you looking at?"

"You." 

Even in the dimness he could see how her cheeks colored at his words, her eyes flickered down demurely. She wasn't used to being complimented which made him want to do it more; it made him feel powerful, like he could make a difference to her. He'd felt the same way earlier, when he'd given her orgasms, first with his tongue and fingers and then with his cock. She’d moaned and murmured and yelled, scratched him with her nails and tugged his hair and held him tight. He'd cried, and he'd been embarrassed wiping his tears against her shoulder, but then he'd realized she was crying too. So they'd held each other and cried, and that had been very good.

She settled back down and curled in next to him. "Waxing gibbous," she said, and it took him a moment to understand what she was referring to.

"Is that what the moon is doing now?" 

She answered with a giggle and a stroke of the tip of her nose against his side. "I don't know, I just like how it sounds. Gibbous like insane laughter…”

“Pretty sure that’s not what that word means.”

“Oh hush. And waxing like…"

"Like Icarus's wings?"

She ceased her giggling and looked up into his face. "I was going to say like leg waxing, but that works too. Better, even."

Ben didn't want to think about waxing, so he kissed Rey instead and she kissed him back, and then she climbed on him and he reached for another condom. They managed not to cry, but if they had it would have been okay.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

Ben awoke alone in the bed. The curtains were still open, and from the quality of the light coming in through the window he could tell that the dawn wasn’t too far away. If it were any other day he’d get up and close the curtains, shut that light away, but instead he lay, eyes closed, in the cool, quiet room and listened to the sound of someone shuffling in the bathroom. The toilet flushed, water ran in the sink, and Rey stepped back into the room, wearing the same dress she’d worn to work the night before. When she saw Ben, that his eyes were open, she walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Good morning, glad to see you’re awake.” Her smile was soft but still blinding, and her thumb was gentle on his chin, at the point where the evidence of his transgression made the transition from his cheek to his neck..

“G’morning Rey,” he answered, taking her hand in his and pressing it against his lips. “Do you have to go?”

She looked down at herself, then back at him, lying in the bed with a sheet pulled up to his chest. “I was thinking about driving up to the ridge, to watch the sunrise. Will you come with me? I know sunlight isn’t really your thing, but I thought maybe.”

Sunlight wasn’t his thing at all, but Rey was, and she was already blinding him, so why not?

Ten minutes later - it should have taken five but Rey kept distracting him as he washed himself and brushed his teeth and put on clothes suitable for public consumption - Rey and Ben were buckling themselves into his car. Ten minutes after that they were climbing onto its hood, parked on the edge of the road in a quiet residential area, a stand of trees on their left and a view of the valley - and the mountains beyond - on their right. The sun was just beginning to peek over those mountains, and Ben had to shade his eyes to keep from being blinded. The gesture made his shoulders shake, but Rey was there to hold him, for the several minutes it took for the blazing sphere to pass the edge of the mountain and begin its slow journey across the sky. 

“Phaethon,” Ben finally said, lowering his hand and looking at Rey, her arms tight around him and her face very close to his. “The son of Helios. Spun out of control when he tried to control the sun.”

“Anyanwu,” Rey retorted, and Ben frowned. 

“Anyanwu?”

“From the Igbo people in Nigeria.” She slid down the front of the car, dragging Ben along with her and landing in the gravel with a thump. “Anyanwu is the sun; the source of power and energy. ‘Through its radiant light it reveals everything’.”

“Everything?” In the sunlight’s illumination he could see flecks of gold in Rey’s brown-green eyes, take in the reddish highlights in her chestnut hair. She was beautiful in the moonlight, but in the sunlight she was positively ravishing.

“Knowledge.” She answered, and pushed him against the car for a quick kiss before jumping back into the passenger seat. “I learned that in intro to world mythology. But come on! I’m hungry, and I know a place.”

“The Sunshine Diner?” Ben asked, slipping behind the wheel.

She grinned as he started the engine and carefully turned the car around to head back into downtown. The sky, which had been a barely dusky pink when they had arrived at the ridge, was in the process of transforming to a brilliant blue, unmarred by clouds. As he maneuvered the car Ben watched the sun’s rays illuminate his Rey, color her cheeks and brighten her eyes. The sun was bright but she was brighter, and he decided that he could handle the sun if it meant that he could bask in her glow, even for a while. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Azuwrite for this beautiful gift moodboard!!  

> 
> If you enjoyed this story please consider reading [Take This Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20369302), another fluffy/angsty (more angsty) Reylo story, featuring an older Sheep Farmer Rey and a younger Intern Ben. I've also just published [The Fall and The Landing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412740), another romance with a touch of mythology talk.
> 
> I'm @flowerofcarrots on Twitter, leofgyth on Tumblr, and leoba on Pillowfort, come say hi!


End file.
